It was the summer. I was crossing the street. People were in a hurry. There were a lot of people in that street walking in a hurry... like ants. I was very tired. There was an elderly man on a bench across the street. He was alone in a black coat. He was a contrast to his surroundings. That free space on the bench next to him was a moment of calm and peace for me. I asked him for one photo, he had eyes like two lines and a nice calm smile on his face. The wrinkles around his eyes and small beard were telling me something about him. He was happy because I sat next to him and he started telling me what the happiness of a young life is... He told me that he had love in my place where I come from and that he was coming to parties to dance with her. He was also a boxer... a passion of living for him. He told me he is alone now. I took a photo of him and left. He was happy because I was there, and I was fulfilled because I heard a new story, because I met pure life energy in an old suit.
After that, I saw him again, he was different... He was alone and asking people for the money he needed for medicines. I was like a stone. The moment I saw him I was desperate. I couldn't move. I gave him some money and walked past him with a sense of disbelief.
A few months later, in the winter of 2016, with his portrait, with The Trace of Life 2, I got a portrait award at an important printmaking competition in Serbia. I was looking for him, I had a big desire to tell him something nice, to sit down with him again and explain our little story which is very important to me... but I have never seen him again.
The conceptually aesthetic core of my art is relation with researching and understanding the human empathy in those relationships that we can build and destroy by chance, I versus Myself, the Me and You relationship and the Me relationship to the otherness of another person and the third person (We); the acceptance of the otherness of another person as the unique and unrepeatable, someone alike and different at the same time. The foundation of my artistic work is a big portrait format with all the details comprising the human character on their face. From my perspective, a human face is a matrix with the engraved lines, the cuts of life we can learn from, listen to and question the things about ourselves. The technique I apply is lino engraving combined with some elements of collagraphy. I called the series of portraits The Trace of Life. I believe that all of us, and each and every person on this planet, have their individual personal trace of life on their face. I am building my creation with plenty of details, under the impression that every single piece of wrinkle or scar tell a story of their own. While I am working, I tend to pay attention to a critical view of the human beings, for their misbehavior, the false etiquette, and the wrong attitude that are leading us all astray. I think we are about to lose a great deal of emotional capacity which is essential for the purity in the conversation among the people. This series of portraits is based on my conversational experience with the people I portrayed. The purity in conversation we are gifted with exists as one of the most important human features and their ability to act like human. However, the speed of this chaotic modern life is slowly tearing us up, and therefore The Trace of Life collection of portraits, has come out as a set of my emotional stories and those of others. It is about the acceptance, the understanding and the open-mindedness. It is about discovering the inner self by decoding the outer image and the exposed features. The outer image for me is the face – a personal map we all have to carry.
The Life seen as an opportunity and the Trace as its existing presence, an image passing without a change at the same time, and like the voice we all need to hear, or the text we have to read, the peace we all urge to feel and the battle we have to go through.
The Life as a chance and the Trace as its direct reflection.
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